Judas
by bluepeony
Summary: Phoebe deals with Billie's death, a communication spell gone wrong, and tries to learn from her dreams and her past why exactly she can't seem to let go.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** This fic starts after an alternate ending to the whole season eight arc, which will be explained as the fic progresses. It will be a femmeslash fic, so you have been forewarned! I don't own Charmed, obviously. That's about it!

Christy doesn't have her memory. It takes awhile to convince Piper, but finally she allows her to go on to a rehab center and a place at UC Berkeley. "She doesn't deserve it," Piper says later to Phoebe about the decision when they are alone.

Phoebe shrugs. "She doesn't have a family anymore. She doesn't have her memories, and she wouldn't want to remember if she could. Do you really resent her for a cramped dorm room and her life?"

Piper sighs, gathers Wyatt into her arms. She turns back to Phoebe before she heads up the stairs. "Yes, I can." After a few steps she pauses. "But when you put it that way, it's hard to."

Phoebe gives a weak smile to her back, but Piper never turns around to see it, just continues taking Wyatt up the stairs.

The obvious first thing to do was to dispose of Billie's body. It was something they surprisingly hadn't had to deal with too often, and Piper said, "Let the police or the Elders or someone else take care of it. It's not our problem."

Paige had looked disturbed by Piper's attitude, but she hadn't protested. Billie was still laid out on their rug, her arm slung over her chest, skin cold. Phoebe had knelt by her, brow crinkling together in concentration. She'd looked up, and Paige had met her eyes for a moment before she'd looked away. "I'll take care of it."

Piper had crossed her arms. "Why should you have to deal with it?"

"I shouldn't have to, but I want to." Phoebe's fingers had reached out to touch Billie's hair, had stopped short, and her hand had withdrawn back to her own knee.

"You don't owe her anything. She tried to _kill us_." Piper had thrown up her hands in disgust. "You know, whatever. As long as I don't have to see her on my carpet anymore."

"She-" Paige started, but then Paige fell silent. Her hand floated to over her stomach for a second, and she looked over at the wooden floor. Finally Paige had added. "If you need any help, Phoebe…"

"I'll be fine. Though if you could orb her to my apartment, it might be easier for me to make the arrangements there." Phoebe followed this with a short laugh, but Paige had done as she'd asked.

---

As Phoebe lays Billie out across her couch, she remembers the smallest moments. Brushing her hair back from her head when she had the magical virus or some conversation they'd had. Nothing important, mostly things from when she first knew her. Nothing from the last part. Nothing bad.

Withdrawing her arms, she covers her face with her hands, tries to ignore the memory of cold skin against her own. Phoebe sighs and moves to her kitchen, hand shaking as she reaches up into her cabinet for a cup. She turns the faucet on, but she manages to splash water over half of her cabinet before she finally turns off the faucet.

It takes her a second to realize that the shattering sound is the cup hitting the wall.

When she ambles back into the living room, Billie is still the same as she was left. The magic left her almost preserved, and there is no trace she isn't just sleeping besides the lack of movement, the absence of even a whisper of breath escaping her mouth. It's so unnatural, Phoebe has to cover her mouth to stop herself from losing what little she managed to get down that night.

She picks up the phone book from her coffee table, circles three more places that handle cremation, tries to think about legal complications. The pen ends up stuck in her mouth, and she notices it, takes it out, sets it down with the phonebook. The air feels too hot, so she opens the doors to her balcony, and the coldness washes over her skin.

Phoebe stands in the doorway without going outside, arms wrapped around herself, lets the wind hit her. Below there are car rushing in the dark, horns blaring in the rush of city noises. Above her the moon is huge and hazy, looming where the stars weren't strong enough to be visible.

Her fingers reach up to touch her mouth for a second, but then she forces them through her hair.

The light switches off, leaving only the path from the balcony in her apartment lit. Phoebe follows the light with her eyes from the outside to the wood of the floor, but she only gets to the arm of the couch before she stops. Her footsteps fall heavy in the silence of her apartment.

She turns down her sheets, feeling the coldness of the silk slide across her skin, and it feels too much like death. These past few weeks have felt too much like death. She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, and tries to forget the body lying across her couch. It takes awhile to get to sleep, and when she does it is just exhaustion winning over her mind that never quite seems to be quiet. Even before she drifts off, her thoughts are still making a weary circle around Billie.

---

_Two Weeks Ago_

"I just- Can I hang out here? I don't want to be alone right now." The way it is said is casual, with a throw of her hands, like Billie has just failed a final or ripped her favorite shirt, not lost both of her parents.

Phoebe doesn't know how to respond to that right away, so her tone comes out as casual. "Of course you can. Yeah, you can stay here as long as you want." She takes off her glasses, swears she can feel a headache coming on, and it is probably from all the excessive matchmaking of a certain interfering someone she doesn't feel like naming at the moment.

Noticing her thoughts straying onto herself, Phoebe shifts herself so that she's facing Billie. Billie has her head thrown back against the couch, and she watches Phoebe through half-closed eyes. Phoebe lays a hand on her leg, makes small strokes with her thumb. "Sure you're alright?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine." Billie let's out a long sigh that is not anywhere near fine.

"Come here." Phoebe holds her arms out. Billie gives her a look like she thinks it might be ridiculous, but Phoebe doesn't pull back. "Come on."

Billie leans over, a sudden warmth against her side, and Phoebe wraps her arms around her. She can feel Billie readjust herself, head fitting neatly into Phoebe's shoulder, and for a moment they just sit, embraced on the couch.

"I'm not going to cry," Billie whispers, but Phoebe can hear the tears in her voice.

She just rubs her hand over Billie's back. "That's fine." She can smell the scent of Billie's shampoo, something soft and clean. Phoebe holds her tighter. "You don't have to."

Finally Billie pulls away, wipes at her face with the back of her arm even though her eyes are still dry. She gives Phoebe a tight smile, but the smile never quite reaches her eyes. Her fingers are curled into light fists over her knees, and Billie fidgets on the couch.

She gets up in a swift motion, and Phoebe's eyes follow her around the table. Billie perches on a chair, rests her head in her hands. She says something that Phoebe can't make out. After a second, Billie looks up at her. "Do you have anything for my head?"

Phoebe gets up from the couch. "Yeah. I'll go get it for you." She brushes her hand lightly over Billie's shoulder as she passes by, sees the shudder of reaction. It is hard for Phoebe to remember losing her mother, and she hasn't lost her father yet, but she's lost, and it is easy enough for her to remember what that loss feels like. She pulls her hand back, continues on to the bathroom.

When she comes back she has a glass of water in her hand which she hands to Billie, and her other hand smoothes over Billie's hair. "Here you go, honey."

Phoebe empties two white pills into Billie's palm, which Billie swallows. "Thanks." Billie sits back, looks almost sunken into the chair.

-

Billie walks behind the couch, hand trailing along the back. She watches her reflection on the floor, just a vague puddle of colors on the hardwood. When she looks up, Phoebe's brow is pulled together, and Billie knows she's worried, but Billie can't seem to cheer herself up enough to do more than give a brief smile. "I'm alright."

"Everyone would understand if you weren't." Phoebe's voice is assured, assuring, and Billie circles closer, back around the couch, her hand trailing along the arm and then dangling back at her side. She steps into a patch of light where the curtains don't quite meet up at the windows, and the warmth seeps into her as she looks up at Phoebe.

Phoebe steps forward, puts a hand on her arm. "You're not alone. You know that, right?" Her thumb makes small strokes on Billie's skin.

"I know." But she doesn't know, or she doesn't really feel it. They are still standing a few feet apart, and Billie can feel that few feet as a definitive split, a chasm between her and the rest of the world. Phoebe can reach across to her, but she is still standing there on the other side of the chasm, just looking across.

Billie is forced to look down, and she concentrates on the slight pressure of where each of Phoebe's fingers rests on her arm, the connection of it. "Come here." Phoebe draws her closer, pulls her into a hug, and Billie has to shut her eyes against the tears that well up in her eyes.

For a moment she just rests against Phoebe, taking in the lightness of the other woman's scent, the comfort of the embrace. "Thank you for letting me stay here."

"Anytime." Phoebe's breath tickles the hairs on the top of her head. She's afraid to say she wants more, but it is a quiet whisper within herself. Phoebe untangles herself from Billie, places her hand on Billie's back. "Why don't you lay down for awhile?"

Billie just nods, because she's tired, and because she knows she can't expect Phoebe to stand in the middle of a room just holding her. Her feet almost don't want to carry her into the other room, and she falls onto the bed like her body is a dead weight.

The sheets are soft as Billie settles herself into Phoebe's covers. The scent is comfortingly familiar, the same smell as Phoebe's old bed at the manor, the smell she's gone to sleep to for the last few weeks of her life, flowers and perfume and something clean like soap or laundry detergent. It lulls her close to sleep now like an old blanket or a favorite pillow.

Phoebe watches her for a moment, straightens a few things on her vanity, bottles of perfume. Billie can see her face in the mirror, and her eyes meet the eyes of Phoebe's reflection. It occurs to her that Phoebe's eyes are meeting the eyes of her reflection. She wonders if there is some difference between that and really meeting each other's eyes. If there is something about the way the mirror inverts their images that changes something.

Phoebe turns around and gives her a little smile. It is meant to be reassuring, and Billie tries her best to feel reassured, but it doesn't touch something inside of her. She's never lost someone she cares about to magic before, and it hurts, hurts so much she doesn't want to think about it.

The mattress shifts as Phoebe sits down beside her. She leans down, softly pushes a strand of Billie's hair away from her eyes, and Billie feels the light touch echo down into her skin. Her fingers wrap around Phoebe's arm as Phoebe starts to move back away, and Billie pulls herself up enough to rest her mouth against Phoebe's cheek. It is just a whisper of a kiss, and Billie says, "Thank you" barely loud enough to be heard before she lets herself fall back against the pillow. She knows she's said it before, but she needs it to be said one more time.

They look at each other, but neither of them says anything to fill the silence. Billie lets her eyes drift shut as Phoebe rises from the bed.

---

Billie perches on the edge of her couch, and from the haze and the way everything glows, a white fuzzy halo tracing even the simplest of objects, Phoebe can tell it is a dream. "It was a nice memory." A smile appears at the edges of Billie's mouth.

Phoebe's mind is still retracing that day two weeks ago that she dreamed about before this. It is still fuzzy in her mind, the images hazy like they are submerged under water. "I don't know how nice it was considering what happened right after it."

Billie looks down, traces the material of the couch with her finger. "Yeah, that." There's something sad about her posture all of the sudden, and in the dream the moonlight is tracing her body so that the whole scene looks like something out of a painting.

Phoebe walks over, sits on the couch, letting her hands dangle between her knees. Billie looks down at her, turns to face her. Phoebe looks up. "This is crazy. Your body is laying on my couch. You're dead. I shouldn't still be having these dreams."

"Maybe it's just a dream." Billie hops off the arm of the couch. "Maybe you're just thinking about me because my body's laying on your couch, and-"

"I don't want to think about you!" Phoebe covers her face with her hands, takes a deep breath. She looks up, claps her hands together quietly. "I'm sorry, but I don't want to think about you anymore."

"Hey, it's alright. I wouldn't want to think about me either." Billie sits down next to her on the couch. She picks up Phoebe's hand, and Phoebe feels a shudder run through her at the slight contact.

Billie turns her hand over, traces a line absently with one finger. "Long life line."

"Yeah, I keep on not dying somehow." Billie doesn't miss the bitter note in Phoebe's voice.

She stands up, tugs on Phoebe's hand. "Stand up."

Phoebe hesitates, but finally she does, and Billie leads her out onto the balcony. The two of them lean over it, looking at the San Francisco nightscape. It seems like forever they stand there in silence. Phoebe laughs softly. "We haven't said much."

Billie shrugs. "It's alright. The memory was more important anyways, and it is almost time for you to wake up." She doesn't take her eyes off the horizon, but her hand lifts off the rail. "See, the sun is out over there."

Phoebe turns to look, but instead she wakes up to her apartment to find the first bit of pink creeping in the window.


	2. Chapter 2

Phoebe sits up in her bed. The last images of the dream are fading from her mind, slipping away as she tries to grasp at them. She opens her nightstand and digs out a dream journal she kept a long time ago, finds a pen, and starts transcribing what she remembers, so fast she can feel the muscles in her hand aching.

The colors are still vivid in her head, bright, surreal greens and reds and blues, though it is hard to for her to recall the exact images they belong to.

When she finally stops writing, lets herself breath normally, lets her hand rest, she's scribbled through six pages in purple ink.

Phoebe lets her finger trace over the words. Most of them are just a remix of a memory she already has, a day that seems like it took place forever ago. She shuts the journal and slips it back into her nightstand. As she stands up, she feels the weight of sleep still clinging to her limbs, tries to shake it off but can't seem to.

Her eyes stay purposely away from the living room as she makes her way into the kitchen, and she starts to open a cabinet, before she notices the shards from the broken cup last night glimmering on the floor. Phoebe stops, leans against the counter. She turns back to her room, decides to pick up coffee on the way to work.

---

"Maybe it was just a dream," Paige offers over the phone. "I mean, a lot has happened. It wouldn't be impossible."

"It wouldn't be impossible, no," Phoebe agrees. "I just get the feeling it's more than just a dream, but it can't still be the spell, right? I mean that would have ended when she…" Phoebe feels her throat close up, and she closes her eyes, rubs her temple with one hand.

Paige is silent on the other end. "I don't know. I would think so. Maybe you just need to move on first. Are you sure you don't need my help with taking care of-?"

"No, I'm taking care of it," Phoebe interrupts, before Paige can finish her sentence. She feels bad for using the word "it". It's bad enough that Phoebe will have to go home to see Billie lying on her couch, as if she is sleeping and not dead. As if she were some kind of doll or as if she was never really a person at all.

It has been nice that she hasn't had to race against nature to have it taken care of. For whatever reason, nothing about her changes or deteriorates, and besides being cold and paler than normal, Billie really doesn't look dead. Not in the way she is supposed to. That bothers Phoebe too, but not as much as the thought of nights full of these kind of dreams do.

Paige, who hasn't said much, finally speaks up. "I think, maybe, you're just trying to come to terms with what happened. I mean, I don't know how to feel, and I…"

"Wasn't caught up in the middle of it?" Phoebe finishes.

"Wasn't as involved as you were. I hardly think I wasn't caught in the middle of it." Paige sighs into the phone, a crackling sound on Phoebe's end. "Listen, if you need to talk, call me, but I promised Henry I'd sneak over to have lunch with him."

Phoebe smiles despite herself. "Go. Have fun." She sets her cell phone down on her desk, takes a big breath and settles her hands on the keyboard.

The words on the computer screen kind of blur in front of Phoebe, and she puts the letter in her hand down and rests her head in her hands. Outside the office people are passing, and for some reason Phoebe is reminded of the moment when Coop was in her office, when he suggested she talk to Billie.

Phoebe stands up and stretches, ignores both her memories and the pile of letters on her desk. She's blocked, and she knows that, but there isn't much she can think to do about it. She sits back in her chair, tips backwards until her feet are almost off the ground and tilts her head back so that she is staring at the ceiling. "Why did you tell me to talk to her?" She asks the ceiling. "It's not like it did much good."

The ceiling doesn't answer. She hasn't seen Coop since, well since she told him she didn't want to see him again, a rash decision looking back. It wasn't that she hated him, she'd just said it because he'd been trying to talk to her at a bad time, when a lot had been going on, and she had just wanted him to stop the whole finding her love routine.

Love didn't and doesn't seem as important as it did even just a few months ago. Phoebe sits back up, shuffles through the letters. That is probably her problem. The questions people ask her are about relationships, and all she can think about is loss or grief or something she can't even name.

Phoebe finally picks up a letter from a man whose wife had recently left him, and she wonders why the words strike a chord with her, but when she turns back to the keyboard, her hands start moving.

---

Phoebe had been flipping through the pages of the Book of Shadows, Coop's advice still ringing in her ears.

In her mind, Phoebe can still see Billie, the loss of her parents still showing on her face when she came to her apartment the afternoon before. There is no reason not to talk to her, no reason why this shouldn't be worked out. They are practically sisters or friends at the very least, Phoebe is sure they are close enough Billie can see that they would never purposely try to hurt either her or her sister.

As if sensing her purpose of mind, the Book of Shadows flips its pages over to a communication spell. Phoebe breaks out of her thoughts and gives the book a half smile. She digs through her pocket and finds a piece of paper. The first words are barely transcribed before she hears footsteps on the stairs, and Phoebe rushes to scribble the last few lines down.

She slips the paper in her pocket as she passes Piper on the way out of the attic. "What are you doing here?" Piper asks.

"Looking up a little spell. Just in case. You?"

"Making a vanquishing potion. _Just in case_." Piper's determined expression only deepens when she sees the exasperation on her sister's face. "Face the facts, Phoebe. We're going to have to fight them, and I just hope you know what side you are on."

"Why are there even sides? And how can you doubt that I'd stand behind you and Paige if it came down to that? Which-" Phoebe holds up a finger. "I'm not saying it will."

"I don't doubt you'll stand behind us. I'm just wondering if you're going to be willing to do more than stand." Piper puts her hand on Phoebe's shoulder. "I know you're attached to her, to them, but this is destiny, Phoebe, not some little family dispute. You heard what the Angel of Destiny said. We're going to fight, not have a little conference and right a few misunderstandings."

Phoebe shakes her head, and one of her hands clutches at the slip of paper in her pocket. "It just doesn't feel right."

"Well, I just hope you'll come around." Piper turns to the Book of Shadows, which is lying open to the communication spell. She looks at the page and then at Phoebe for a moment, but without a word she turns to another page while Phoebe slips out of the attic.

---

When she gets back to her apartment, the words on the paper run together enough Phoebe has to squint at them to make them out. She sighs and hunts for her reading glasses amongst a pile of magazines on her coffee table.

The words become more clearly focused when she puts the glasses on, but it doesn't make all of them readable. Phoebe sighs and gets a legal pad out of a side drawer. As best she can, she smoothes out the piece of paper from her pocket and recopies the spell.

Holding the legal pad away from her, she takes off her glasses and shrugs. "Here's hoping for the best." As Phoebe reads the spell, a few papers rustle, but nothing else happens. When she is finished she looks around, but her apartment is the same except for a couple of papers which have fluttered to the floor.

Phoebe reaches down to pick them up, her mind running over the possibilities of what went wrong. She might have copied down the words wrong. With another sigh, Phoebe replaces the papers on the table and sits herself on the couch.

"How am I supposed to talk to her if I can reach her?" Phoebe asks herself out loud, but there is no one there to answer her. She starts to feel drowsy as she sits there, her body a comfortable sort of heavy. The couch is soft as she leans back, and she closes her eyes.

Her mind runs through the events of the week, trying to see where whatever happened took place, but she can't seem to find it. It was alright, and then it wasn't alright. She is half asleep, and her mind has moved farther into the past, digs up a memory of another spell she can use.

Rousing herself from her half sleep, Phoebe notices how dim her apartment has gotten. She blinks and tries to find a clock, but there isn't one. She can still feel the sleepiness clinging to her, but she ignores it and pulls herself to her feet.

---

Phoebe is almost done typing the response to the man when Elise taps on the door. "I thought I'd tell you it was six. Almost everyone else is cutting out early, if you want to." She offers Phoebe a tiny smile.

Phoebe tries to smile back. "Yeah, after I finish this."

Elise pauses in the doorway. "I hate to seem like I'm prying, but you haven't seemed yourself lately. If you need someone to talk to or if you need some time off…"

Phoebe shook her head. "I'll be fine, Elise, really." Elise just nods, disappears. Phoebe saves her document and turns off the computer. She can see people getting ready to leave outside her office.

On her way back home, she stops to grab some Chinese take-out she calls in with her cell phone. The lady behind the cashier is morose looking, and she barks a crisp "What's your name?" to Phoebe as she wipes off the counter.

After Phoebe answers, a brown paper sack is set down in front of her.

She sets her food in the passenger seat before she gets back in the car. For a moment she sits silently in the car, her keys dangling in the ignition. Phoebe knows she is just avoiding going home, but she doesn't feel like calling Piper, doesn't feel like bugging Paige again.

Her breath comes out slow and evenly as she finally turns the keys. When she gets to the door of her apartment, it will take her a second to turn the keys once they are in the door.

The curtains are closed tight enough she can pretend she is alone and everything is normal if she doesn't look hard enough. Phoebe throws her things on a chair and carries the food to the kitchen.

The little paper containers are set by each other in a line, each one glinting in the kitchen lighting. She picks one at random, which turns out to be vegetable lo mein, and picks at it with her fork.

---

The night when she'd had the first dream, she thinks of what happened with Piper and Billie before she goes to bed, the increasing hopelessness of the situation. Phoebe pulls a brush through her hair. She'd helped Piper off the floor, and the two of them had argued before Piper had left.

In ways, Phoebe thinks Piper is right. She can see the situation becoming something she can't handle, but she still can't see why it is. The thought of having to fight makes her feel nauseous, and it doesn't take long after Piper leaves before she decides to just go to bed.

She's still groggy from her nap the afternoon before, an exhaustion that never quite left her, and when she passes her table the papers have fallen back onto her floor. She waves her hand at them, leaves them there on the way to her bedroom.

Her sheets feel smooth against her skin, retain the cold as she slips beneath them. Her eyes are drifting shut before her head even rests against the pillow.

She can't even remember falling asleep before she finds herself in magic school, but the dramatic shadows and the filtered colors tell her that she's just dreaming. Even without them, she can feel that it is just a dream, can somehow sense that it isn't really reality.

"Phoebe?" Phoebe turns at the familiar voice to see Billie standing behind her, question on her face. There's something too realistic about the dream, something that isn't symbolic enough, something too immediate and conscious. Phoebe remembers the spell she used earlier, before the text spell, wonders for a minute if it has anything to do with this.

"Are you asleep?" The question seems to confuse Billie more, but she nods her head.

"I just fell asleep a few minutes ago. Or at least I think I did…" Billie touches Phoebe's arm as if to see if it is really there. She seems half surprised when she feels skin. "Is am just having a really weird dream or are you really in my dream with me?"

"No, I think I'm really in your dream with you. Or you're in my dream with me." Phoebe shakes her head. "Either way, I think a spell I was trying to use earlier backfired."

"Oh." She can almost watch Billie close herself off. "Well I guess we're just stuck here until we wake up." She starts to walk off to one of the couches against the wall, but Phoebe grabs her elbow.

"I didn't know Piper was going to show up today."

"Yeah, whatever." Billie turns around, meets Phoebe's eyes. "Look, I believe you, but what am I supposed to say?"

"Say you'll talk to me. It's not like Piper's going to come here." Billie looks around like she half expects Piper could, but she sighs.

"Alright." She lets Phoebe lead her the rest of the way to the couch, where they sit on opposite ends facing each other. Her lips are pursed together, her hands neatly folded on her lap, and Billie is holding her back too straight. She seems to notice the hurt look on Phoebe face and relents, her body slumping into the couch. "Maybe this isn't going to work."

She doesn't say what isn't going to work. There are so many things that can't work. Phoebe leans forward. "It won't work if you don't try."

"Don't try to defend her." Billie crosses her arms, leans back so that her head is resting on the back of the couch and she is looking towards the ceiling.

It doesn't take Phoebe long to figure out she means Piper. She tries not to flinch. "Okay, I won't."

Billie's head turns towards her. "Really?"

Phoebe leans back herself. "Yeah. I mean if it is going to be an issue, there's no reason we need to start there."

Billie gives a casual shrug. "Yeah, I guess." After she runs her palm over her eyes, she asks, "So where do you want to start?"

"We don't have to start anywhere, really, as long as we're talking. I don't think it's going to help at this point to try to jump to the point. If we get there, we'll get there when we're ready." Billie nods slowly. Phoebe can tell she is more at ease than before, because her muscles don't look tense like she is prepared to spring off the couch and bolt.

"How are you?" Billie asks, like she really wants to know. It takes Phoebe off guard, partly because it hasn't really been that long since they've seen each other last, partly because she didn't expect the question to be as sincere as it was.

So she answers as honestly as she can. "I don't know." They don't look at each other for a few seconds. Phoebe asks, "How are you?"

"I don't know." She twists her fingers with her other hand. "Confused," she admits, but then she winces like she regrets she says it. "I can't talk to you about this."

"Why not?" Phoebe scoots closer on the couch. "Are you really that afraid to just to talk to me… to listen to me?"

There's something about Billie's expression when she looks up, fear mixed in with a thousand other emotions Phoebe can't pick apart. Her blue eyes sparkle in the light of the dream, and Billie closes them, takes a breath. Each word is punctuated as she says, "I don't know."

Phoebe can't help but to reach out and push the hair behind her ear, and Billie remains frozen as she does this, doesn't even seem to breathe. She opens her eyes as Phoebe's fingers leave her skin, and their eyes meet, stay connected until Phoebe's hand is lowered back down to her leg.

Billie looks at the floor, and Phoebe looks at her hands resting in her lap. Billie pushes herself up from the couch, breaking through the stillness of the moment, and Phoebe sits back up. "How do you think we know when this is over?" Billie asks, looking around the tables like there might be a spell or something to get her out of the dream.

"I don't know." Phoebe almost laughs at how often those words have been spoken in this conversation. She gets to her feet too, stops Billie's pacing with a hand on her arm. "Look at me for a second."

Billie does, and Phoebe tries to put together the words she knows she needs to say. "Just don't make Piper right, okay?"

She knows it was the wrong thing to say as soon as Billie pulls away from her. "Right about what?"

"About you," Phoebe answers, and Billie scoffs at her.

"You mean about vanquishing me and my sister, right? Because that's Piper's plan of action, isn't it?" Billie throws her hands up, turns away. "God, why am I not surprised?" She stops, turns back towards Phoebe. "Do you feel that way?"

Phoebe stands and tries to answer, but she keeps thinking about Piper's earlier assertion. If it came to that, would she ever feel that way? Phoebe sighs. "I wouldn't be trying to talk to you if I just wanted to vanquish you."

"Thanks, that makes me feel so much better." She can hear the hurt, but there is nothing to say to make it better, and no time to say it before she wakes up to the stark white of her pillow.

---

Phoebe places her fortune cookie on a nightstand, unopened, before she runs a hand over her pillow, regards it with a sort of tired weariness. In her other hand she clutches two white sleeping pills, and she takes them down dry before she pulls herself under the covers.

After awhile, Phoebe tosses onto her other side. The voice shocks her eyes back open. "You can't avoid the dreams with pills."

For a sickening moment before she realizes she's fallen asleep, there are thousands of thoughts about how Billie isn't really dead, about how she's walked in from the living room, but then Phoebe notices the how dramatic the lighting of the room is, with deep shadows and lights that almost burn into surfaces without hurting her eyes. She has to close her eyes again anyways.

"I wish you could," Billie adds, and her voice is sad, has nothing to contrast it in the eerie silence that seems to swallow these scenes. When Phoebe finally reopens her eyes, she sees Billie give a little shrug of her left shoulder before she holds a hand out. "But you can't."

It takes her a minute to remember what they were talking about, then she remembers pills. The sleeping pills. Phoebe allows herself to be pulled to her feet. "So you admit it. They are these kind of dreams."

"They're your dreams, Phoebe" is all Billie says as she pulls a robe over Phoebe's arms.

"Can you give me a break here? You're dead, and I'm…" Phoebe doesn't know what she is. Billie seems to be waiting for an answer too, except for she seems resigned that it isn't going to come.

"These dreams were always our own sort of reality, weren't they? I mean even after we weren't talking, we were talking, weren't we?" She tugs Phoebe into the living room, and Phoebe follows because she can't think of what else to do, because she's struck by all of the memories of all of those other dreams.

"Yeah, some good talking did us." She didn't know her voice would sound as bitter as it does.

A frown tugs at the corners of Billie's mouth, but she doesn't say anything, drapes her arms loosely over Phoebe's shoulders. "What are you doing?" Phoebe asks.

"I wanted to dance." It's so odd, because it is them, and they are standing in the middle of a dream-made apartment, and Billie is dead, but she wants to dance. Phoebe laughs. "Come on, Phoebe. It's not going to kill you."

The laugh dies in Phoebe's throat. "Wrong choice of words. Sorry." She leads Phoebe, slow step by slow step, and Phoebe finds it easy to fall into the rhythm, almost lulling.

Billie leans against her, head light against Phoebe's right shoulder, breath warm against her throat. The way she feels these things are displaced, like she isn't really feeling them, and Phoebe supposes it is because in a way, she isn't. "Why?" she asks, but there are so many whys, she doesn't know which one of them she is asking.

"They're your dreams, Phoebe. Figure it out." Her head settles more firmly against Phoebe's shoulder, and Phoebe can feel the flutter of her eyelashes and she closes her eyes. "I'm just… here."

"I don't want you to be here," Phoebe whispers, but as she says it she pulls Billie closer to her.

Billie pulls herself away. Her blue eyes meet Phoebe's. "When you don't want me to be here, I'll leave," she promises.

"But I just said-" Phoebe starts, before Billie interrupts her with a quiet smile.

"I know." Phoebe wakes up with those words, the fortune cookie in her hand. Phoebe pauses before she opens it, but the piece of paper is blank.


End file.
